


Quite Ridiculous

by marginaliana



Category: Mary Poppins (1964), QI RPF, Sherlock (TV), Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alan hasn’t been told the names of today’s guests in advance – supposedly due to scheduling issues, but probably, he now thinks, so that he wouldn’t assault the producer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quite Ridiculous

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Monsteranon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monsteranon/gifts).



> This is a Yuletide treat! Thanks to emef for the look over.

Alan knows it’s going to be a long recording when he walks into the green room and the first thing he sees is the oblong curve of a white racing helmet.

 _Oh, for fuck's sake,_ he thinks. He hasn’t been told the names of today’s guests in advance – supposedly due to scheduling issues, but probably, Alan now thinks, so that he wouldn’t assault the producer. _Not this, come on. Even Clarkson would have been better._ He edges around the Stig and looks around for someone sensible.

“Alan!” says Stephen effusively from the other side of the room. 

_Well,_ Alan thinks, _he’ll have to do._

Standing next to him is a woman, dark-haired and looking rather prim and proper; she seems vaguely familiar, so Alan spends the five seconds of his walk across the room trying to figure out who the hell she is. It’s not until he’s holding his hand out for her to shake that he realizes she’s that woman who does the latest version of Supernanny. 

Stephen introduces her as “Miss Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way.” 

_Luvvie alert,_ Alan thinks, trying not to roll his eyes. 

But Mary is already whacking Stephen on the arm. “None of that nonsense with me, young man,” she says. “Or shall I tell Alan the story of you and Uncle Albert having tea together?” 

Stephen goes bright red and coughs into his hand. “Yes, well. Perhaps not.” Alan meets Mary’s gaze and the two of them trade a look that tells Alan he’ll be getting the story later on anyway. “And our other guests,” Stephen continues, “are, well, I’m sure you’re familiar with Sherlock Holmes.” He indicates the other half of the room with a tilt of his head; Alan turns to look and finds Holmes and another man in a terrible sweater talking to the Stig. Holmes looks immensely bored.

“How the hell’d we get _him_?” Alan blurts, impressed despite himself. The man had been dead six months ago – well, thought dead at any rate.

“He wrote a blog post telling everyone how completely stupid the show was,” Stephen says. “Apparently it’s trivially easy to guess which ‘mangled corpse of the truth’ I’m looking for in any given question. So we’ve invited him along to prove it.”

“He’s a very interesting man,” says Mary. There’s an odd, sly tone to her voice, like she has a bit of a bone to pick with Holmes.

“Well, quite interesting,” Stephen says. “That’s all we really ask for. To be honest, we may have overshot with him. And of course you know the Stig.”

“Yes, _about him_ ,” says Alan, turning back to give Stephen a pointed look.

“He’s very funny, dear boy,” says Stephen. “You really must give him a chance.”

Alan opens his mouth to protest, but before he can say a word John comes in and tells them it’s time to get started.

\-----

Holmes’ buzzer is the sound of a violin. Mary’s buzzer is the sound of a pigeon cooing. Stig’s buzzer doesn’t make a noise at all, but he gets a round of uproarious applause from the audience nonetheless. Alan discovers he’s grinding his teeth and forces himself to stop. His own buzzer, when he gets the chance to sound it, is, ‘Manchester United four, Arsenal nil.’

“Right,” says Stephen, when the audience has stopped laughing and Alan has stopped grinding his teeth the second time. “Let’s dive right in, shall we? What is Britain’s most popular pastime?”

“Queuing,” Mary suggests. It’s an answer Alan rather likes, especially as an opener – after all, it’s certainly the one thing the British public passes the most time doing, even if it doesn’t exactly qualify as a pastime. But Stephen chuckles, shaking his head, so Alan offers a few suggestions of his own: “Watching gardening shows,” and then, rapid fire, “watching cooking shows, watching war documentaries…”

“Alan,” says Stephen, when he can get a word in. “Alan. I’ll give you a hint, in that it’s no form of television. Shocking, I know.”

“I may have to reconsider my career plans,” says Alan.

“Fishing,” says Holmes, a bit abruptly. This turns out, horrifyingly, to be the correct answer. 

“On second thought, I’ll stick with television,” says Alan. “Fishing? Really?”

“Angling, specifically,” Holmes drawls. “Unutterably dull, isn’t it? Fish behavior is already documented fairly comprehensively. And yet people persist in sitting by the side of a stream that hasn’t seen a barbel in twenty years, waggling their line in some sort of kabbalistic diagram and then blaming the position of the stars when they catch nothing.”

The audience seems torn between shock and laughter.

“Well, it’s a hobby,” says Stephen. “I’m not sure anyone is really in it to catch fish, are they?”

“Then what’s the point?” Alan asks. “Easier to sit and do nothing at home, I’d think. More comfortable, certainly.”

“If you sit and do nothing at home,” says Mary, “other people will come along and ask you to take out the rubbish and do the washing up. Shamefully inconsiderate of them.”

“Terrible,” Stephen agrees. “How anyone expects to get nothing done these days I just don’t know. Now, can any of you tell me the size of the largest fish caught in Britain by angling?”

\-----

The recording doesn’t go nearly as badly as Alan had feared. Holmes knows many, but not all of the answers – he’s excellent on statistical information, hit or miss on facts about the natural world, and completely useless at pop culture – and somewhere along the line reveals that he’d promised his flatmate he’d wait to answer any given question at least ten seconds or until someone else had answered first.

Mary, on the other hand, is less knowledgeable about obscure facts but absolutely brilliant when it comes to storytelling; there’s an anecdote about one of the Supernanny families and an educational outing to the bank that has Alan laughing so hard he cries. 

And the Stig, well. The Stig answers several questions – at least, that’s what Alan _thinks_ he’s doing. The trouble is, whenever the Stig is supposedly talking, Alan can't hear a word of it. It’s just silence, interspersed with laughter from literally everyone else in the studio. He’d think it was all just one big running gag that no one’s bothered to let him in on if it weren’t for the fact that the others seem to actually be listening and responding.

Maybe he’s going mad. Or maybe it's just that 'overplayed petrolhead gimmick' language is only audible to people who are infected with the mania. 

\-----

"What should you not do, when you're driving at night and you see someone with their headlights turned off?" says Stephen. "Especially in America."

"Oh!" says Alan, snapping his fingers. He suspects the klaxon's going to go, but he says it anyway. "Flash your lights at them!" It's reassuring to know that he's at least correct about the klaxon. "'Cause they'll follow you home and murder you,” he says, when it’s finished blaring. “Isn’t that it? With a hook on the door handle. They just hook on and ride all the way home with you and then murder you." 

“No, dear,” says Stephen. “It’s a lovely story to tell in the dark but I’m afraid it simply isn’t true.”

“I’m sure I heard it from a reliable source when I was eight,” Alan says.

“There’s always one of those types of stories going around, isn’t there?” says Mary. “You wouldn’t believe the sorts of things people tell you, very solemnly, when you’re a woman who goes all over the country for work. Never mind that I’m quite capable of taking care of myself, and anyway I’m usually traveling with a film crew and a director and so on. Stuff and nonsense. But I rather fancy the idea that all American gang members have hooks, Alan. ‘Time to be initiated into the gang – let’s chop off your hand! That won’t make life difficult for us at all.’”

Alan laughs. “It just proves how tough they are. ‘We’re so tough we can mess you up with one hand tied behind our backs. No, wait, with one hand cut off! Just try and fuck with us.’”

“…” says the Stig, which gets a tremendous laugh from the audience.

“Oh, yes,” says Mary. “America has a never-ending supply of crocodiles, I believe. And isn’t that what most gang members are, really? Just lost little boys playacting at being villains?”

“Mmm,” Stephen says, sounding skeptical. “D’you think?” 

_When did this turn into Mrs. Freud's Therapy Hour?_ Alan wonders.

“People want stability," Mary says. "Somewhere to belong. Especially young people. They'll take it anywhere they can get it, that's the problem."

“Disturbingly poetic, but accurate,” Holmes says, sneering. "For once."

Mary doesn't seem phased by Holmes' attitude, just meets his gaze with a calm, measured stare. The unspoken battle of wills lasts for nearly fifteen seconds; Alan has just begun to entertain a horrible suspicion involving the words 'unresolved sexual tension' when Holmes cracks first and looks away.

“Right,” says Stephen, straightening his pile of cards against the desk. “Moving on.”

\-----

Somehow they muddle through to the end, covering trainspotting, stamp collecting, caravans. Alan gets to mime a man falling asleep in the middle of a Coldplay concert, which is nearly amusing enough to make up for having to hear 'Manchester United four, Arsenal nil' every time he rings his bloody buzzer. Mary tells another fantastic anecdote, this time about being accosted in the street by a chimney sweep. Stephen asks Holmes, "Do you enjoy camping?" and gets the response, "Only if there are corpses involved," which is brilliant but depressingly certain to be cut from the edit. Alan finds himself wishing he could dispense with all the quite interesting bollocks and just interview Holmes for a while. But he isn't paid for that – is paid, in fact, not to say anything of substance whatsoever. So he carries on.

And Stig says... various things. Apparently.

Finally they're done, the last pickups filmed, the last audience member pointedly ushered out of the studio. Alan swipes his face clean of makeup in a few swift gestures and joins the general milling about that always happens in the green room after the show. It's a bit overwhelming, writers and staff and production guests all forming into groups and then parting and re-forming. Mary is talking to one of the writers; Holmes and his friend in the terrible sweater are talking to Stephen. Alan catches something about 'obviously experiencing a mid-life crisis' and turns abruptly in another direction. 

He spots John in the crowd, the producer looking relaxed and careless and like he has no idea Alan's just had to work through the longest recording of his fucking life. _Right,_ Alan thinks. _That's it._ But before he can take more than two steps in John's direction a gloved hand on his arm makes him startle and turn back. 

“Erm, I just wanted to tell you,” blurts a quiet, high-pitched voice. It can only be coming from the Stig, though the black visor of the helmet shows no sign of movement. “I, er. I’m a huge fan of Jonathan Creek and I think you're brilliant?” The voice is so hesitant that it comes out as a question, and between that and the shock of hearing the Stig talk at all it takes Alan a long moment to be able to actually parse the statement.

"Er, thanks," he says, and thinks, _Dear god, I need a drink._


End file.
